Cottonmouth

[crebbsgirl]

Snake Oil with linden blossom, calla lily, passion flower, and narcissus.

I love this!! It's like Snake Oil Lite on me. I don't get one flower standing out, but more of a mellowing vibe to the whole blend. This really surprises me of course, as flowers and I have a rather tumultuous relationship. I will say that at some point in the drydown this gets a little hazy and smoky feeling, but it's a light wispy smoke, and I don't exactly know what's causing it. It's beautiful though, and a little ethereal. Overall, this is total love.

[DeltaCat]

Oh yeah! This scream out to me pretty perfume that you dab on. I would rather slather though! Amazing! The musks and spice of Snake Oil with the strong heady floral of a calla lily. Def. bottle worthy!

[kelpsoda]

I smell snake oil at first, but it's quickly overpowered by the lily and narcissus.

 

After awhile, it fades to just snake oil with an undertone of florals. I must amp the snake oil, or somehing - and unfortunately I don't like snake oil by itself.

[CitizenBree]

This may be the first snake pit that I like. I'm a fan of lily, so that could be it, but honestly, I can't really pick out the individual floral notes of this. It's sexy, but innocent. A springtime or summer scent. Has a bit of a suntan lotion smell.

 

I'll be seeking out a full imp of this and potentially get a bottle before the pit goes away.

[Shollin]

First sniff: I do get Snake Oil underneath, but wisping around it is a very pretty fresh, clean, pale-blue scent. It’s an interesting contrast.

 

Wearing: Oh, wow. If I could find fabric softener that smelled like this, I would be a happy happy woman. Fresh and clean and deep and rich all at once.

 

…I would also be a happy woman if the fresh part lasted longer than an hour, but after that, it’s straight Snake Oil.

[tailoredshirt]

In the bottle: Wow, juicy. Fresh mango maybe, with a bit of floral. I love this already, and I don't do sweet foodie scents.

 

Wet: Ungh, I love this so much. It's so fresh and clean, I can't even describe it. Like smelling a fresh mango that hasn't been cut open yet, or going into the grocery store and standing in the fruit section - green, fresh, cold, slightly sweet. All of that, plus fresh cut flowers. Gorgeous.

 

Dry: After a few minutes, the fruit slides to the background and I smell strong florals - the lily, I think. I'm not good at distinguishing some florals, but this is slightly tropical floral. (It should be noted that when I hear "tropical" I usually associate that with fake plastic scents or Tahitian vanilla, but that's not what this is.) I usually amp vanilla like whoa, and I was expecting a bit of that with the SO, but I haven't gotten any vanilla yet.

 

I've only had it on for about 45 minutes so I can't comment on the dry down yet, but this is gorgeous on me so far. I might need to come back and edit later.

 

Overall: Fresh, green fruits and heady tropical florals. I never thought I'd like a "tropical" blend, but that's what this feels like to me and I love it. So pretty.

 

ETA: After about an hour, I start getting the vanilla. *sigh* I like vanilla in moderation, but it amps on me so much that I start to feel nauseous after wearing it for a while, especially when I'm huffing my wrist. The combination of vanilla and lily is very pretty, but they're two really strong notes and I couldn't wear this every day. But I will definitely keep my decant and wear it when the mood strikes, which I know it will.

Edited April 23, 2010 by tailoredshirt

[b00cat]

Another imp generously given to me.....Very light blue floral..not getting ANY snake oil from it. Very cool spring/summer scent, and I can definitely see the other forumite comparisons to B&BW Cotton Blossom. Unfortunately not my type of scent, but happy I got to try it.

[RhinestoneHousewife]

This smells like Snake Oil Lite on me as well. Snake Oil Lite and dryer sheets. Warm and fresh but it doesn't do a lot for me. I think I'm going to let it age a bit and try it again.

[galahad]

In The Bottle

Sweet and floral

 

On Application

Very floral but I can pick out the spicy narcissus. Snake oil comes to the fore very quickly

 

Dry Down

This reminds me of Hunger (one of my favourites) very much - smoky vanilla and narcissus. The florals lighten up as the other floral notes make an appearance cutting through the initial heavinesss and headiness of the oil. And then the whole thing kind of disappears on me. Snake oil never does that. Strange.

 

Rating (0-5)

3.5

[theasylph]

I second the mention of Snake oil and dryer sheets. I find this combo of Snake oil and florals a little unsettling. On my skin is mellows to a chalky resiny floral that is not my fav of the Snake Pits. The drydown an hour into the scent is kind of growing on me though.

Edited June 27, 2011 by theasylph

[kawaiiferreto]

Wet: Fruity with a hint of floral. I don't smell any hints of Snake Oil at this stage.

 

Dry - 1 hour: Sweet, floral and powdery, almost in a dryer sheet sort of way. I am barely getting the Snake Oil in there. It's really quite lovely and well blended, but a lot more floral than I like for myself.

 

Dry - 1.5 hours: How odd. Very suddenly this went POOF and was almost gone. The super floral seemed to be where most of the throw was coming from and it just mellowed out a whole lot. I can still smell this if I huff my wrist up close. The Snake Oil is a bit more apparent but ever so light. I'm getting more of the vanilla from SN without the spice and oomph it usually has.

 

 

Dry - 3 hours: As the floral fades even more this gets an odd plastic note to it. Snake Oil doesn't do that on me so I'm guessing it's the combo of Snake Oil w/ the blooms.

[angelamaria]

In decant: oh, so excited to try this! I'm getting a light floral scent, pleasant--linden, and a demure lily. Definitely not Snake Oily, but I'm getting creamy vanilla, slightly dark and musky.

 

Wet on skin: hello there, pretty linden blossom and lily. You are lovely, and I love this blend. We've got linden and lily and a slightly spicy vanilla; I can "sense" the presence of Snake Oil, but definitely light. There's also a slightly cinnamony spice thing going on here, sweet and softly spicy. This is working really well so far. Lovely!

 

Dry: aaaaaand hello, powder Sigh. That's definitely another nail in the coffin: Snake Oil does not work for my skin chemistry, in any amount. It's now a nice spicy floral powder on me, faintly sneezy. Sigh.

 

Verdict: well, I suppose I should be thankful I don't have to go hunting for this discontinued blend!

[Withjoy]

Snake Oil is a scent that has never worked on me, although I'd really love it to be awesome. So when I found out about the Snake Pit, I hoped that I could track a few of them down and that one of them would work.

 

Cottonmouth is my first attempt, and it's the one I have the most hope for. In the bottle it has a strong floral scent, but unfortunately on my skin the floral almost disappears. It's not quite straight Snake Oil, and is certainly better than SO, but it's not as floral as I was hoping!

[OctoberGwen]

For some reason I didn't think I'd enjoy flowers with my Snake Oil, but boy was I wrong: this is gorgeous. On top are the fresh, bright blooms (I adore linden blossom, which to me has a dewy quality to it) with the SO providing a deep, dusky base.

 

Another plus: like Snake Oil itself and also Boomslang, Cottonmouth smells as good or better on me during that awkward time of the month when every other beloved oil becomes Awful Stinkfest. Hooray for BPALs that are impervious to hormones!

Edited February 17, 2013 by OctoberGwen

[tharsei-thanate]

Oh gosh, I'm finally trying Cottonmouth.

 

Snake Oil hasn't worked on me in the past, and when I found out about the Snake Pit this was the blend that called out to me. My three favorite florals are sweet pea, lily, and linden blossom, and whaddya know, Cottonmouth has two of them! Nevertheless, the Snake Oil scared me so I passed up buying a bottle during the etsy rush. Then the bottles sold out and I was hit with regret, haha. Luckily, a search of the forums revealed a seller with a half-decant! So thank you to kawaiiferreto for selling this to me. (:

 

In the imp: Hmmm. Snake Oil and powder? Sourness? And a very faint breath of florals. Not very pretty, but I'm sure once it hits my skin it'll bloom, so to speak.

 

Wet: Goes on sour but then... oh. Oh oh oh. This is nice! It's instantly warmed up and morphed. It's light, but the Snake Oil is behaving and mixing together beautifully with the creamy florals. I'm picturing flower petals steeping in Snake Oil.

 

Dry-Down: Hmmmm. The vanilla in the Snake Oil, the note that makes Snake Oil smell like Play-Doh on me, is emerging. It's standing at the threshold of death, toeing the line. Please don't cross over!

 

Dry: The worst has been avoided! The vanilla steps away from Play-Doh death and morphs into vanilla sugar. The rest of the Snake Oil is delicious smokey incense enveloping fresh, clean linden blossom. There's a vague sourness but if I put my nose right up to my skin the sourness isn't apparent. There isn't really much throw. This is very light.

 

Further on: It's like waves of scent. It goes from sugary incense, to vaguely sour florals, to vague soap, to vaguely sour incense, to incense tinged calla lily...

 

I don't know how I feel about this overall. I think my skin chem is being weird today so I def have to do more tests. I do have to say though, the sugary, smokey incense parts of the scent are what I've wished straight-up Snake Oil would smell like on me. It's really very nice, but then there's that sourness, likely from one of the florals, and the lack of a throw.

 

So yeah, I'll put this away for a bit and then retry it. I still have hope for this little guy, but I'm relieved this wasn't instant love. I feel a bit better about missing out on a bottle now, haha.

[sharkdiver]

is all I have to say about Cottonmouth.

 

...no it's not. It's amazing.

 

it smells very light and "white" innocent floral in the bottle, but not overbearing in any way (and I am not much of a floral person, unless it's a "floriental")

 

wet on skin: that same very innocent CREAMY white floral - still very light, not "heady" - this is stunning.

 

Dry - This is a beautiful creamy/vanilla floral - I get mostly lindenblossom, and maybe some Narcissus, I can't pick out the Calla Lilly specifically, it's very well blended...the only other scent I can compare this to, even they don't smell alike, but has a similar feel would be to Antique Lace...it has that creamy vanilla very light floral...this is absolutely gorgous! It lived up to the hype for me!

[GoddesShel]

There's Snake Oil in this? Really?? Are you positive?

 

I get a very clean, white, incensey, sweet floral that is absolutely DIVINE - but nothing in the whole thing reminds me of Snake Oil, This is beautiful, and if it comes back (Brian, I'm holding you to that statement you made about reformulations!) a bottle will be MINE. It does indeed, remind me of the sniffie of Antique Lace that I have.

[quickdrawkiddo]

This wasn't high on my list to try - I'm not huge on Snake Oil (though I've only ever tried it brand new), and none of the florals in this are favorites of mine. In the imp I was mostly getting florals, but I thought, "well, what the hey," and slathered it on anyway. SO glad I did! It dried down to a lovely, warm spicy-floral-vanilla blend, none of which sounds like something I'd be into AT ALL, but somehow it works! I think it's because it isn't overly sweet, despite what the description sounds like. So pleased I got to try this! It's such a pleasant surprise

[kscha2017]

In the bottle, overwhelmingly beautiful floral - mostly linden and lily. After application, I got a big *boom* of the florals before it toned down. The Snake Oil peeked out after it dried and went a little "off". The scent rapidly faded and after an hour I can only smell very faint linden if I press my nose against my wrist and inhale deeply.

[doomsday_disco]

2016 version.

 

Note: I have not tried the previous release.

 

In the bottle: This is the least Snake Oil-y of all of the five Snake Pit scents that I ordered. It's a very pretty, sweet, white floral scent. I can smell the calla lily, linden blossom, and narcissus, but I'm not familiar with passionflower (which I'm guessing is the note with the somewhat tropical vibe). As a fan of sugary florals, I'm hoping the vanilla of the Snake Oil will be prominent on me, so that I get vanilla and spice-tinged florals.

 

Wet: The white floral notes reign. The floral notes are soft as opposed to heady. There is only a very faint hint of Snake Oil spices, but I have to inhale really deeply to smell them.

 

Dry: The floral notes still reign. If I inhale really deeply, I can smell the vanilla and spices, albeit faintly. This is predominantly a white floral scent.

 

Verdict: I enjoy the florals, but I was hoping that the Snake Oil base would show up more on my skin. Hopefully I'll get some more vanilla and spices from this as it ages. This is nice, though!

[LizziesLuck]

2016

 

Wet: Light, lush florals. Some sweetness. I can't even detect the Snake Oil, and the colour of the oil is much lighter than I expected, leading me to believe there is maybe just a touch of Snake Oil in this. It's soft and pretty. Something gives it an almost fruity vibe - I am guessing the Passionflower, I am not familiar with it. It's lush and pretty with the white floral notes.

 

 

Dry: So much lighter than I expected! It's quite pretty. The linden blossom comes across as very "clean" to me. The lily is a little peppery, as it sometimes is on me, and a little creamy. The fruitiness of the passionflower has faded, which is a shame. I do like this, but it doesn't seem to have any throw, or great wear length one me. It is fairly unique though (and that's saying a lot, I have a ton of florals) so I will likely give it a full day test before I make any decisions about it.

 

 

ETA: Finally retesting, and with a new perspective, as I am now looking for a variety of very light, clean scents I can wear to my now scent-sensitive workplace.

 

Wet: Very pretty and clean, as I remembered it. The linden blossom is prominent, and the other florals add sweetness. It smells almost-but-not-quite like laundry. It reminds me a bit of Boober in that sense (which I have come to love). I think this would be a good addition to my "work scents" collection.

 

Dry: Disappointingly, I keep catching wafts of...well, feces...from my arm! Jasmine and Oudh both do that on me sometimes, I wonder if either of those is present but not listed? Or maybe one of the other flowers here does that whole smelly indolic thing that I can't handle. Either way, this is not something I want to wear. Too bad, I like the notes underneath the stank.

Edited August 13, 2017 by LizziesLuck

[Aviatrix]

Normally Snake Oil doesn't work well for me, but I wanted to give this one a try because I love linden blossom and there are entirely too few blends with that note.

I am not getting much in the way of Snake Oil at all, actually. I am getting a bit of linden blossom along with a lot of lily, so if you're wary of the lily note you might want to proceed with caution.

 

I quite like it, but unfortunately it faded quickly on my skin.

[Lunabelle]

Huh. This one is odd to me, first try. I'm not a reviewer, but I thought I'd add my two cents. Dry, on me, this is totally a lily scent. I don't get any snake oil. It reminds me of Easter lilies that are about to be spent...at their most potent state. It is very spring-like to me. Lots of throw and long-lasting on me. On wet, it did give me a grandma-perfume vibe, but it settled into a nice floral after a bit. Not a bad scent at all...but not a snake oil scent, IMO. I like it enough that I'll keep the bottle.

[Teaker]

This does NOT work for me. This is the scent that made me realize that narcissus is possibly my most hated note. It just smells so awful and rank. If you somehow like the scent of narcissus you'll probably love this, but for me its unbearable.

[Teamama]

Cottonmouth 2016 is inducing a really intense scent memory for me. The green notes combine with the Snake Oil to smell like summertime by the Yakima river. The Yakima flows through the desert in Eastern Washington. The bitter greens are reminiscent of desert trees and grasses, along the riverbanks. I can smell sunshine through dappled leaves, water on stone, and shade. Entrancing!

 

The floral notes in Cottonmouth are pretty low-key on me. I'm getting Snake Oil with a lot of green. It's not "lush" green; more like the slightly bitter green of willow bark, or desert plants.

 

I REALLY like this! My budget must include funds for a bottle of Cottonmouth!

 

Edited to add: 7 months later, the balance of the notes has changed. The greens have receded to the background, so Snake Oil is more prominent. The florals are still low-key.

It has has also become STRONG. Seriously, Cottonmouth has huge throw, and lasts all day.

Edited December 24, 2016 by Teamama